God is impossible. That is the first proof that He exists.

The expression “God is impossible. That is the first proof that He exists.” presents impossibility not as an objection to God but as a reason to take God’s existence seriously. In a brief philosophical exchange with Lin, it reverses the expected direction of proof and makes the limits of belief the subject of the argument.

The Exchange with Lin

The statement follows Lin’s admission that he does not believe in God and finds the idea of God impossible to believe in, at least in the forms he has encountered. His interlocutor first rejects belief as the relevant category, saying, “There is no believing in God,” and proposing instead that people either know God or do not. He then takes up Lin’s word “impossible” and turns it into the first proof of God’s existence.

Meaning and Rhetorical Force

The expression works through paradox: what Lin offers as a reason for disbelief becomes, in his interlocutor’s reply, a reason for belief. It does not supply a conventional demonstration or explain how impossibility proves existence; its force lies in challenging the assumptions behind Lin’s formulation. The exchange therefore shifts the question from whether God can be accepted as an idea to whether the limits of ordinary belief can settle the question at all. The interlocutor’s smile and the narrator’s awareness that he is entering a deep philosophical test give the claim a personal, probing quality as well as an abstract one.